The Year of the Woman by Erie Reader Staff
2020 was the year of the woman. We celebrated 100 years since the passage of the 19th Amendment and the constitutional guarantee of women s suffrage and with that power we finally elected the first female vice president in a contest largely settled by the tremendous political power of women voters.
In Erie, even in the face of the pandemic we celebrated the centennial of women s suffrage with community events, murals, and educational initiatives to help uplift and showcase the contributions of women in American society and throughout Erie s history.
That celebration and the lessons learned came to a screeching halt in early January as four men on Erie City Council joined together to promote Ed Brzezinski to council president over Councilwoman Liz Allen, whom Brzezinski had publicly called a nut and a broad just weeks before. Brzezinski offered a half-hearted apology at the followin
Ed Brzezinski will lead Erie City Council in 2021.
Brzezinski s election as council president, however, brought both tension and debate to the seven-member panel s first meeting of the new year.
Council members chose Brzezinski by a 4-3 vote at the panel s regular meeting on Wednesday morning.
Brzezinski, 74, spent four years on City Council from 1988 to 1992, followed by 12 years on the Erie School Board from 2006 to 2018.
A retired educator, Brzezinski won his current four-year term on City Council in 2019.
Brzezinski told colleagues on Wednesday that he would like to meet with individual council members next week to discuss their goals for 2021 and the various issues facing the city, including finances.
The city of Erie’s 2021 budget is set.
Erie City Council voted 5-2 to approve Mayor Joe Schember’s $97.7 million spending plan at its regular meeting Wednesday night.
The budget plugs in a portion of the $97.7 million the city received from Erie Water Works in October, as part of a lease prepayment deal, to eliminate a $3.3 million budget deficit for 2020 to avoid a property tax increase.
During budget deliberations, a City Council majority and Schember’s administration agreed to jettison a proposed garbage rate increase that would raise an average residential customer’s yearly fees from the current $261 to $271, as well as a fee hike that would increase the average city residential customer’s sewer rates from roughly $306 a year to $314.